Contribution
My Lords, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Mackenzie of Sherwood. I note that a DCMS Minister is answering an education debate; I hope that is a sign that joined-up thinking is finally going to be a thing. I very much support every part of the Bill and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on introducing it. Arts education in schools is important on many levels. The arts are an integral component of a democratic society, and it is the right of young people—indeed, a UN right of the child—to have both access to the arts and an opportunity to engage with them at an early age.
We talk a lot about literacy—conventional, digital and even financial literacy—but less about cultural, visual or aural literacy. Within that context, I will make a particular point about neurodivergent students. There are estimates that up to a third of NEETs, or even more, have some form of neurodivergence. The question must arise: if we know there is a connection between creativity and neurodivergent conditions, how much is the decline of creative education in schools and the lack of opportunities responsible, at least in part, for the high numbers of NEETs? I am not convinced that putting a lot of these young people into retail is necessarily the right long-term answer.
Research into these areas is sparse, though what there is points in a certain direction. Might the Government consider commissioning research into this whole area, which would be of help to both education and employment? One thing that many would want to change is the negative perception of those with neurodivergent conditions. What is a negative is the narrow belief that the academic route should necessarily represent the gold standard or the only approach to education.
The major problem that creative education in schools currently has is the structural deficit from so many years of a decline that is still continuing, despite the removal of the EBacc. As Arts and Minds points out, GCSE entries to creative subjects are down by 47% since 2010. In many schools, there is now an institutionalised bias away from the arts that needs to be reversed; that will be difficult. This Bill puts the hours in place, but there is also the shortage of specialist art teachers, including in primary schools. We need, as has been said, to bring back ITT bursaries for art subjects, and in a big way. The reference point should be not the last year but 2010, since when there has been a huge loss in arts teachers. Much more money must be spent on arts in schools, so that we get back musical instruments, art materials and studios. The Bill says “may”, but it ought to be “must”.
School libraries are also important. Books are not just about the written word—they include art books. As Julia Donaldson pointed out at the Publishers Association reception on Tuesday, we also need school librarians to point students in the right direction. Rightly, the Bill encourages partnerships with theatres, museums, galleries and established artists.
In my Question on Monday, on the 100% cuts to the Government’s day-to-day funding of higher education creative courses, my noble friend Lord Hampton made the pertinent point that if we start losing graduates in the creative industries, where will the next generation of specialist school teachers come from? We would not, of course, expect everyone who has a creative education to have a creative career, as the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said, but those opportunities should be there from the outset. What affects HE will feed back into schools, just as what happens in schools will determine the demand for the arts in higher education. We can have either a virtuous circle or a destructive cycle. What surely is required is an overall strategy for creative education that looks closely at the effect of such decision-making across the whole education ecosystem, including the excellent recommendations that the Bill makes.